Venice, 2022. After a year delay the longest running art world event is finally here and it has already been dubbed the Biennale of women: out of the 200 participants from 58 pavilions and the countless shows that have taken the enchanting city on the water by storm, about 90% of the artists are women and are headlining the entire edition.
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Rubbing shoulders with Sonia Boyce’s Golden Lion for best National Pavilion and Simone Leigh’s award for best Participant in the main exhibition, another woman, right at the base of the Arsenale, has a show on view that has piqued the interest of passers – by and has captured their hearts.
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A New Zealander that has called Venice home for the past sixteen years, Veronica Green has been successfully working her way into the contemporary industry since her first solo exhibition in Wellington in 2007 and is now considered an established evolutionary in the world of abstract figurative art: through phosphorescent and fluorescent paint we are able to dive into her whimsical universe. Her Venice solo show 10 – Minute Window marks her first live exhibition after the pandemic and also debuts a new style: triple – scene paintings. A feature of her practice is the use of phosphorescent paint that is especially devised to be visible in the dark and that, through alternating light settings, breathes new life into the canvases giving them an entirely new meaning.
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The focus of the show, via the performative act of opening and closing windows at 10 minute intervals, is allowing Green’s audience to fully appreciate the ambivalent nature of her work and of the city where the show takes place where the closing and re – opening of the famed “veneziane” shutters is a routine performed by the city’s inhabitants to control their light.
The show provides one with the opportunity to take 10 minutes out of the day to nurture and engage with their inner child and revisit their hopes, dreams and goals.
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The exhibition 10 - Minute Window by New Zealand artist Veronica Green is composed of 5 artworks that are to be admired through different lights and settings.
Lighting, whether bright or absent, is indeed the focus of the show, as it is complementary to the viewing of the paintings that, through alternating moments of light and shadow, reveal their true ambivalent nature.
Through a specific fluorescent pigment that glows in the dark, the five pieces have been devised to be visible in the shade. Opening and closing windows become then a performative act that enables Green's audience to fully appreciate her work while also offering a subtle nod to the culture of the city where the show takes place: Venice. Sure enough, a distinguished feature of the Venetian cityscape are her windows, which open up onto the water, the calli or the palazzos, offering a glimpse of the peculiar architectures they call home.
